The Palestinian Authority (PA) announced that it will pay civil servants half of their salaries for February but terrorists and their families have already received the full amount paid to them as a stipend for attacking Israelis.

Ma’an Newsreported that Shukri Bishara, the Palestinian Minister of Finance, announced that the Palestinian government will be paying only 50 percent of the monthly payroll of the Palestinian civil servants for the month of February 2019. Employees whose salaries are below 2,000 shekels ($550) will receive a full salary however the rest of the civil servants will receive 50 percent of their monthly salary for the same month. He also confirmed that the 50 percent will not be less than a minimum of 2,000 shekels. The Palestinian government decided to freeze all recruitment and promotions of civil servants, as well as the purchase of real estate and vehicles during this time. In addition, leave allowances of civil servants and government officials will also be significantly downsized.

In comparison, more than 4,500 terrorists incarcerated in Israeli jails receive NIS 1,400-12,000. Criminals convicted of non-terrorism related crimes do not receive the stipends. The terrorists’ salaries are paid from the same budget as the civil servants’.

The PA blamed the austerity measures on the decision by the Israeli government to withhold approximately $140 million in tax money due to the PA decision to continue paying stipends to terrorists and their families. Israel collects funds from imports into the West Bank and Gaza, in addition to other taxes, and forwards a large sum of it to the PA, after deduction of payments for water and electricity. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the decision to withhold the money as per Israel’s anti-pay-for-slay law

Bishara said that he plans to borrow $50 million a month from banks during the coming months.

Subscribe to our mailing list

First Name

Last Name

Country

Birthdate mm/dd/yyyy

/
/
( mm / dd / yyyy )

Breaking Israel News

AM News Email

PM News Email

The Israel Bible Reading Plan

Weekly Torah Portion

Israel365 Store Email

Daily Store Email

No Promotions

No promotional emails

Israel365 Daily Inspiration

Daily Email Inspiration

Email Format

html

text

Marketing Permissions

Please check the EMAIL option below to enable receiving the updates you have selected above.

EMAIL

You can change your mind at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in the footer of any email you receive from us, or by contacting us at [email protected] For more information about our privacy practices please see our privacy policy: www.israel365.com/privacy-policy/

We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy practices here.

About the Author

Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz is a features writer for Breaking Israel News. He made Aliyah to Israel in 1991 and served in the IDF as a combat medic. Berkowitz studied Jewish law and received rabbinical ordination in Israel. He has worked as a freelance writer and two works of fiction, The Hope Merchant and Dolphins on the Moon, are available on Amazon. He lives in the Golan Heights with his wife and their four children.